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Not necessarily, says Pierce—he notes that regulatory agencies sometimes forego the bulky, time-consuming rule-making process because they know few people have the money or will to challenge them.

“If the FAA has a policy statement saying, ‘If you do this for profit, we’ll go after your ass,’ that’s enough for a lot of people,” he says. “The only way you get definitive answers to these questions is if you spend tens of thousands of dollars in court.”

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That’s where Pirker comes in.

While a dozen other drone pilots have received cease-and-desist letters, Pirker is the only one who’s been fined, and he is willing to spend the money for a legal challenge. The difference, FAA’s Dorr says, is that Pirker was cited not for commercial drone use but for “careless and reckless operation of the unmanned aircraft.”

The statute that the FAA used seems an odd fit: The regulations state that a person can be prosecuted for reckless flight for flying an aircraft below 500 feet—which is at odds with the guidelines that suggest model aircraft can only be flown below 400 feet. The statute also says a pilot can be fined for walking around the cabin while the plane is in flight—impossible to do with a Styrofoam drone. One question for the judge is whether this statute applies to such a small aircraft.

Another is whether Pirker was, in fact, flying recklessly. Even when drones have crashed and killed—as happened to one drone operator in Brooklyn who was partially decapitated by his own helicopter in September—the FAA has chosen to not investigate, instead deferring to local law enforcement. There are dozens of YouTube videos of drone crashes in populated areas, but none of those pilots has been fined. And Pirker, who says his foam drone couldn’t cause any damage “even in a worst-case scenario,” flew at UVA without incident.

The Swiss citizen has been on the FAA’s radar since late 2010, when he and two employees of BlackSheep, his drone manufacturing company, flew the same foam drone around the Statue of Liberty’s head, descended close to skyscrapers in midtown and zipped above passing cars on the Brooklyn Bridge.

During the flight, people stared, wondering what was going on. Afterward, they got mad. The Academy of Model Aeronautics said the flight “posed significant threat to people and property.” The FAA investigated and eventually determined that Pirker broke no laws—operating a small drone is legal, even next to New York City’s skyscrapers.

So why did they come after him for the University of Virginia flight, which was less dangerous but for which he was paid? Although the FAA is adamant that Pirker wasn’t fined for flying commercially, the official complaint against him does note that he “received compensation,” and many people in the drone world believe the FAA chose him to send a message.

If that's the case, the agency is taking a gamble: If a judge determines that the reckless flying statute—and the FAA’s authority—does not extend to such small drones, Cummings says, other small drone operators will get the message that they’re free to fly as they wish.

Pierce, of George Washington University, notes that it’s possible a judge could rule the foam drone is an “aircraft.” But if the FAA can regulate a five-pound drone, Schulman says, “What’s stopping them from regulating a Frisbee, or a baseball or bullets, for that matter?”

Armed with a high-powered attorney who specializes in drone law and the fact that he was essentially flying a toy, Pirker likes his chances.

“The laws they have in place are not reasonable right now, and the way they’re trying to enforce them don’t make any sense to me,” he told me one night over Skype from Hong Kong, where he now lives and is getting his drone business off the ground.

Schulman says that if his case is dismissed, it will immediately open the door for other drone operators to fly without fear of FAA prosecution, especially because a new regulation that officially bans commercial drones could take a year. And even if the FAA does try to enact a temporary emergency rule, at least that would spur the agency to act more quickly, which is exactly what those in the drone world want.

“It’s weird that they’ve made this their landmark case,” Pirker says. “I don’t care about getting off the hook. My biggest motivator is that these laws are not fair and they’re hurting an entire industry.”

If he wins, Pirker might become the least of the agency's problems.

Jason Koebler is a freelance science and technology reporter based in Brooklyn. Follow him @jason_koebler.